


Five Times Tony Stark Talked Himself Out Of Trouble (And One Time He Couldn't Quite Manage It)

by rainproof



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Humor, Bad Parenting, Bisexual Character, Character Study, Childhood, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Feels, Five Times, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pre-Slash, Recreational Drug Use, Substance Abuse, Underage Drinking, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-24 02:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainproof/pseuds/rainproof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Trouble" might not be Tony Stark's middle name, but on most days it felt a hell of a lot more appropriate than "Edward".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first MCU fic - all dates taken from [this](http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/5395/A-Marvel-Cinematic-Universe-Timeline/#vars!date=2191-09-03_09:53:15!) timeline, though most of the stuff on Maria Stark is invented.

The remote controlled car was _awesome_. It was a foot long and six inches wide, a hand-painted miniature version of his father’s favorite porsche, the one Tony was never allowed to ride in. Tony fell in love with it at first sight - it was sleek, compact, exorbitantly expensive, and by far the coolest toy he’d ever seen.

He pestered his mother for weeks, talking about it constantly, doodling it over and over again in the margins of his multiplication workbooks. 

Remote controlled devices were hardly a new thing in the Stark household; Howard prided himself on being _cutting edge_ , which meant anything in the house that could be mechanized or controlled from across the room _was._

Tony, being Tony, started taking those selfsame gadgets apart as soon as he figured out how to operate a screw driver. By the time he was three his parents had come to grips with the fact that their son had an immense physical intelligence and a grasp of how things worked that went beyond language - their reactions were mixed. His father found his son’s budding technological gifts obnoxious - it was hard as hell to keep Tony’s hands off of the VCR, let alone the computer in his office. Maria, on the other hand, lived in fear of her son electrocuting himself by sticking a screwdriver into the toaster. They began locking doors and cabinets and drawers, though it only took Tony a few months to learn how to pick them.

When your son was a mechanical genius, entertaining him could be a challenge - Tony would rather sit in his room and take apart his clock-radio than go outside and play with other children. When Tony asked - and asked, and asked, and asked, and asked, and god, _asked_ for the car, Maria leapt at the chance to give him something age-appropriate and _normal_ to do with his time. 

The car was ordered and the five days it took to ship it to Long Island were the longest five days of Tony’s young life; on the day it finally arrived, every adult in the house breathed a sigh of relief. Tony would _finally_ stop talking about the damn car.

Tony tore through the packaging, ripped open the box, slapped in a set of batteries without hesitation and was, in very short order, chasing his remote controlled porsche around the mansion with gusto. 

Tony Stark, age five, was not a normal child.

That’s not to say that he never tried his hand at normal things; he didn’t actively _try_ to be different, he just _was_. He cracked a window in the living room playing with a ball - that was normal, right? One time he convinced their aging chef to play tag in the backyard, which wasn’t quite as normal... and not all that much fun, considering how slow Gary ran. Once he even broke an arm while teaching himself to ride his bicycle; normal, except that he was only teaching himself because his dad was in Tokyo for the week. The trouble with normal mistakes was that when his father found out about them (he always did, even when Tony made himself a sling and pretended for two days that nothing was wrong with his wrist) he was always angry.

(He remembered how Howard frowned at the cracked window and muttered, _just cracked it, didn’t you. With an arm like that I’d cross baseball off your list of career options, kiddo._ Howard’s motto (well, one of Howard’s mottos, the Motto of the Week changed regularly) was _if you’re going to fail, fail big. Little failures are for little men afraid to take big risks_.)

So five year old Tony spent his Saturday sketching out ideas for his project. He was too afraid of being laughed at to ask for proper supplies (and he wasn’t allowed to use his soldering iron unsupervised) so superglue would have to do. Fortunately he had so many (unused, boring, pointless) electronic toys that beyond a few simple items he would have all that he needed. He took apart his clock-radio, his newest remote control car, his Evel Knievel Stunt Bike and began breaking them down methodically, dropping screws into piles by size and gauge, carefully cutting plastic and unwinding wires. 

If he failed it would be big in concept if not in execution, and Dad would never find out anyway, so it wouldn’t even matter and nobody would laugh at him. 

But if it worked... what would his dad say if it _worked_?

Excited, he started with car, prying off the undercarriage and combining the frame with the frame of his clock radio and working upwards from there.

It turned out that robots (talking _or_ silent) were harder than he’d expected. The lighting in his room wasn’t very good, and the Christmas toolset he’d been given was a children’s version of what he really needed... the pieces made of plastic and easily worn down or snapped in two. 

Tony had no idea why his mother thought her incredibly gifted son needed anything other than an honest to god toolset; sooner or later she was going to have to accept that what was appropriate for the average child was never going to be right for _Tony_.

Worse, the superglue he’d stolen from his father’s desk in lieu of the forbidden soldering iron really _was_ super. It stuck to everything, to his nails and the lacquered wood floor and to the myriad tiny screws he’d set so carefully aside. 

That was the most frustrating part of the whole undertaking, really: at age five, boy-genius Tony Stark was a heck of a lot more brilliant than he was physically coordinated. His fingers were small but clumsy, it took too many tries to fasten things in place, he needed tools smaller than the ones at hand... his body couldn’t keep up with his brain, and it was _aggravating_.

If he’d had access to his dad’s workroom it would have been easy, but his mother was adamant about keeping him away from such “dangerous” machinery. Tony thought he could probably pick the lock - but there were cameras down there, lots of cameras, and it just wasn’t worth it.

In the end, his best effort was something out of Frankenstein - a boxy plastic robot with just enough face to suggest a personality. It had limited motion-sensor capabilities and would ding at him when he picked up the remote - but it certainly wouldn’t be talking any time soon, and Tony couldn’t figure out how to make it move itself. 

As far as friends went the little guy was pretty sub-par.

It wasn’t nearly as nice as the remote controlled car had been in the first place... but then it had been special-ordered from the United Kingdom and was barely ever played with.

At last Tony reached an unhappy conclusion - robots weren’t meant to be built by five year olds; at least, not by five year olds who could understand their own limited capability and resorted to throwing toy screwdrivers into walls in fits of frustrated pique. If he wanted to get serious about robotics it was going to take more than a judicious use of superglue and repeat readings of such age-inappropriate classics as _I, Robot_. It would also require developing actual motor skills, something that went beyond simple brains and into the realm of human developmental patterns. It wasn’t something he could cheat, or skip, or rush - even at five Tony _hated_ things like that.

Also, he’d probably need a computer - and that was another one of those things he wasn’t allowed to play with unsupervised. 

Sometimes (most of the time, really) Tony hated being so self-aware. He hated that he even knew what that phrase meant. He hated that while his parents knew his test scores and comprehension levels they didn’t seem to _realize_ what they meant, and alternately treated him like a child or a fully-grown adult instead of understanding that he was stuck somewhere in between and that it was _awful_. 

Staring at the slightly dented shell of his (shockingly advanced for a child, but not advanced enough for _Tony_ ) robot, Tony pushed his lips together in a thin line. 

It wasn’t a failure, exactly, but it wasn’t a success, either. His little 10-inch-by-six-inch attempt at advanced robotics was still too tiny to meet Howard’s approval.

Sighing, Tony stripped the axles off the defective machine and began rebuilding the toys he’d cannibalized. After separating out the clock-radio guts from the remote-controlled car guts from the stung bike guts, he painstakingly went about reassembling them both.

The clock-radio was easy; Tony had broken it down and reassembled it at least three times within the first day he’d owned it, a day spent sprawled out on his bed with an absurdly advanced technical text and a dictionary laying next to him. He adjusted it, tuned it appropriately, and set it back on the desk with barely a thought. 

The remote controlled car was the hardest thing to reconstruct. Tony could remember exactly where each piece belonged, but actually getting them there was significantly more difficult than he’d expected. There were springy shocks involved, and the tension of them made it difficult to force the other pieces back into their places on the frame. When one popped out and snapped him in the cheek, and he spent a few minutes blinking back tears and biting his lip. 

Worst of all, several key elements of his defective robot-friend had required copious amounts of superglue to cement together and no longer fit into the remote controlled vehicle’s casing. Worse than failing to build a talking robot was failing to rebuild something he’d taken apart - something expensive that should have been easy and wasn’t. 

Tony sat back, momentarily defeated, and began to calculate a plan.

Fifteen minutes later there was a yelp and a shriek in the mansion’s main stairwell, followed by a _crash!_ and clatter of scattering plastic pieces. Tony (sure his father would guess that he was lying if his tumble was not utterly convincing) banged his elbow on the stairs as he slipped down and was half-slumped on the bottom step, holding his arm and working up a set of tears that were only half faked.

The remote controlled car hit the main floor on a corner and absolutely _exploded_ , pieces flying every which way. This was premeditated, of course - Tony had loosened half the screws and dropped it _just so_. Even better, the plastic casing had actually cracked, splitting the bright red R/C toy nearly in half.

 _Now_ Tony began to cry. By the time Maria whipped around the corner, her dark hair plaited and coiled atop her head Tony had already reached the undignified choked-for-breath stage of his tears. He reached for her automatically and let her scoop him into her arms and cradle his head against her smooth, cool neck.

He loved the way his mother smelled - sweet and a little spicy. She didn’t even mind that he was dripping tears (and worse) all over her shoulder, or that he was really too big to be held comfortably anymore.

Oh, he _loved_ his mother.

“Oh, honey, what happened?” Maria cooed, pressing her nose into his hair.

“I-“ _sniff_ “I slipped on the stairs and I-“ _snuffle_ “My arm... I hit m-my, I hit my _arm_ and I br-br-broke my ca- _aaa_ -aaar...”

If the wailing and tears were really the product of a miniature inventor’s creative frustration, Maria Stark didn’t need to know. “Oh honey, we can get you a new car, don’t worry a bit about the car, should we have James look at your elbow? Here, let me see sweetie, let’s get a glass of water and have James look it over.”

The arm was fine ( _"Not broken again, is it? Thank God,"_ Howard observed from the doorway to the kitchen) and the maid swept up the shattered R/C car and nobody said a word about the superglue under his nails. Less than an hour later Tony nursed a cup of milk as his mother read from a designer catalog and Gary, the chef, prepared their supper - a normal evening at the Stark household.

The next day Tony went methodically through every cabinet in the house and made a mental list of solvents capable of removing super glue; three short weeks later the car was replaced. It took only seven hours for Tony to master breaking it down to its base components and rebuilding it perfectly.

He didn’t try his hand at another robot until he was 9.


	2. Chapter 2

“This is a bad idea,” said Howard Stark with a shake of his head. “Too many things can go wrong.”

“Things could go wrong any way you slice it,” Obie said, placatingly. “Normal children don’t come with instruction manuals, let alone kids like Tony. MIT is the only place for him, you know that. He’s been working from their textbooks for years, you might as well let him earn credit towards a degree.”

“He’s too young for college,” Howard shoved the end of his pen at Obadiah and frowned. “All those degrees are meaningless for someone with a head like his. He hardly needs a piece of paper to show the world he can rub two brain cells together.”

Obadiah chuckled. “You know that, I know that, he sure as hell knows it, but the Board of Directors doesn’t know it. They want the heir of Stark Industries with all the trappings - MIT will make them happy, it’ll give Tony something to do for a few years, and you can keep your focus on SI.”

“Still...”

The object of their conversation sat silent and still in an oversized sweatshirt on his father’s leather sofa, watching the pair volley words back and forth. He was fourteen.

As far as Tony could tell, Howard viewed his son much like he viewed his latest surface to air missile design. Fun to conceptualize, to create, but needing to be tweaked and tuned and paraded around in front of the general public; something which felt like a chore now that Howard had mentally moved on to his next project. Tony was a loose end, a box still needing to be checked.

The MIT conversation had been floating around the house ever since he’d begun amending advanced robotics textbooks at age ten. Maria was staunchly against sending him off into the world - she thought he was too young, wanted him to have more time as a child. Tony, however, was not a child... and he couldn’t help but notice that Howard was _not_ having this conversation with his mother.

No, Howard consulted Obie on this, because Tony’s trajectory was a _business_ decision. Obadiah Stane understood Stark v. 2.0’s role at Stark Industries far better than Maria did; understood that the company relied on Tony in way his family didn’t. Tony was an investment, and Obadiah wanted to pad their odds by maximizing his ability to lead effectively.

It wasn’t quite like being loved, but it was better than being an annoyance. 

Despite his clear-cut ambition, Obie was actually a pretty decent guy. He made time for Tony, took him aside from time to time and asked to see what he was working on... even better, he actually seemed to _care_. He asked the right questions, laughed at the ridiculous names Tony gave his creations and snuck him a cigar on his birthdays. Smoking made Tony feel like an adult - as he’d sucked on the cigar he’d imagined what it would be like to stand around with Obadiah in board rooms and make billions and billions of dollars with his brain.

Obadiah wasn’t family, but he was close enough... and unlike Maria he thought MIT was a great idea.

Tony wanted MIT so badly he could taste it. A campus full of new faces, a new city - he’d been to Boston a few times, but never without parental supervision. The idea of being several states away from his father on a semi-permanent basis was the light at the end of the tunnel that was his adolescence. 

“You know I can’t move to Massachusetts for this, and I need Maria with me,” Howard stood, moved to the bar and poured himself a glass from a tall crystal decanter. He and Obadiah drank their scotch on the rocks, and once they both had a glass comfortably in hand he leaned up against the bar and pursed his lips.

“Send one of the staff with him. Or stick him in a dorm,” Obadiah waved a hand dismissively, winking at Tony when Howard was looking away. “He’ll spend all his time in their labs anyway, it’s techie candyland down there. Imagine what that brain of his could produce given the full run of their equipment!”

Tony thought he’d actually find a dormitory interesting, if moderately terrifying. He’d be fifteen in a few weeks and MIT was no stranger to prodigies; what’s more, he could count his friends under the age of thirty on one hand. It would be nice to go out and meet other teenagers, even if they’d all be four or five years older than he was. Then again, was someone his age even _allowed_ to stay in the dorms?

“Absolutely not, I won’t hear of it,” Howard nearly choked on his drink. “A Stark splitting a room with some ... some smarmy-assed nobody? I know what goes on in college dormitories once classes are over; completely inappropriate place for a kid his age.”

“He’s not a child, Howard.”

“He’s fourteen!”

“He’ll be fifteen in a few weeks, and you sent him to boarding school for years, this is really no different. He could be the youngest student to enter MIT to date, think of how that would _look_. All I’m saying is that any time Tony gets press the stock bumps just that much higher,” Obadiah reminded Howard, patiently. “You know how investors go for that dynasty crap, let MIT babysit Tony, he’ll get the requisite laurels out of the way. A few robotics awards, a few classes taught as a TA, maybe, it doesn’t matter. The press will eat it up.”

Howard turned to look at Tony and Tony stared right back, nervously. He wanted MIT badly enough to swallow back his offense at the idea of college being a glorified babysitter. After a tense moment, Howard made a noncommittal noise of acquiescence and Tony _didn’t_ manage to swallow back a victorious “yessss!”

“One sign of trouble and I’m jerking you out of there,” his father warned, expression sharp. “I’m serious. I get the slightest inkling that you’ve set foot outside the laboratory and you’re _done_. Anything but top marks - ”

“Howard, he’s a genius! What’s the worst that could happen?” laughed Obadiah, pouring Tony a finger of scotch. They toasted - two parts excitement, one part grumbling reservations, and it was decided.

The trouble with words like “the worst that could happen” was that they were entirely subjective and Tony thrived on raising the bar.

That fall “worst” proved to be the fact that Tony was bored to tears in half of his courses. They were working through such basic _stuff_ that he spent his class hours writing a new programming language and envisioning an AI that would complete his homework for him. (Eventually he’d finish it, name it DUM-E and win the MIT Robotics Design Award for the third year running. DUM-E’s creation and execution would be the entirety of his first masters thesis.) His boredom was thinly veiled, and after a few terse parent-teacher conferences (ugh, really? parent-teacher conferences in college?) and a generous contribution to the engineering department Tony was allowed to sit for a series of final exams in lieu of actually completing coursework. He passed out of his first year in three days of testing and the school begrudgingly placed him in more advanced courses.

Once the workload got interesting Tony decided that he liked college. The labs were great; he excelled at physical and electrical engineering and found chemistry slightly less engaging, but still cool... his dad was never overly-fond of chemistry and a lot of the equipment was new to Tony. He even made a friend - a student five years older than him named James Rhodes, who was the first of Tony’s lab partners to tell him to “go to hell” when Tony suggested he do the entirety of the written work for a nominal fee. 

Tony liked that about him; contrary as ever, he decided Rhodey was his new partner in crime and proceeded to lavish him with (expensive, aggravating) affection, Tony Stark style. It took Rhodey a little while to embrace the boy-genius as a peer rather than a kid brother, but (as per usual) Tony eventually got his way.

Beyond Rhodey, though, Tony was uncertain about his peers. In a lot of ways _college_ was synonymous with _networking_ , and when Stark is your last name you’re the one everyone wants to network _with_. While there were always party invitations, always girls smiling and winking and willing to pour him a drink, it was never _Tony_ they were looking at - just the name _Stark_. Never having attended a real high school, Tony half-expected to be teased and shoved into lockers for being inescapably nerdy... but it turned out that being rich, famous, and brilliant meant that people were willing to overlook the fact that he was fifteen and awkward as hell. Besides, everyone at MIT was at least a _little_ bit nerdy.

Through Rhodey he showed up on the party scene and took to it like a fish to the Pacific ocean. He figures out quickly that while everyone knows exactly who he is, nobody knows how to tell him no; what he doesn’t figure out is that it’s a recipe for disaster. He smokes his first joint before he can drive, eats a funky mushroom here and there, and drops acid exactly once before deciding it can die in a fire, he likes his brain unmelted, thank you very much. The habits that stick - cigarettes, booze, the occasional bowl - work their way into the fabric of his life like a stain.

There were girls, too - so many girls, none of whom seemed to mind that he was young and only needed to shave once a week when he showed up to their house parties with $200 bottles of wine tucked under his arm. The family’s hired chaperone wouldn’t let them stay in the townhouse the Starks purchased for his use during college, but Tony was a _genius_. Finding any number of excuses to explain away his overnight absences was simple. 

Howard Stark’s worst nightmare eventually played out in the spring of his son’s junior year. Tony was sixteen and careless and happy in a way it would take years to reclaim until a set a photos hits the weekly gossip rags with the headline _Tony Stark: Academic, or Addict?_

Okay, so letting himself be photographed smashed out of his gourd, holding a bottle of beer with his arms slung around the shoulders of the biology department’s cutest TAs wasn’t his brightest idea. Whoever passed them to the press added a few lascivious statements about women and blunts and alcoholism running in the family - blah, blah, blah. 

Tony felt the screaming phone conversation with his father was a _serious_ overreaction, considering the reputation of the magazine in question. Three weeks before they’d been running stories about aliens in New Mexico; nobody was going to take this seriously.

Or so he thought until he rolled in slightly buzzed from the lab and found himself staring at Obadiah Stane’s flat, thoughtful expression.

“Tony.”

“....Obie?” Tony looked around the room, waiting for the other shoe to fall. His chaperone was no where to be seen, and more importantly, neither was his father. Dropping his book bag onto a chair, he looked at Obadiah suspiciously. Obie looked back and studied the way he’d grown, the outbreak of acne at his temple, the shaggy lack-of-a-haircut.

Tony was way, way too drunk for this conversation to go well.

 _There’s a bug in my programming,_ he thought to himself as Obadiah Stane looked him over and found him lacking. _I need to be repaired._

He’d assumed his father would show up - maybe they’d yell at each other for another hour or two, slamming doors instead of slamming down phone receivers. Obadiah was problematic in that Tony, in a very backwards way, actually _cared_ about his opinion.

He couldn’t scream at Obadiah, so he slunk towards his room.

“Tony, we need to have a conversation about this,” Obie observed, his voice calm and commanding. “Sit down. I’ll pour you a drink.”

Tony let himself be drawn back, staring at Obie through his dark bangs. “Did dad send you?”

“Not... exactly. Your father was upset, but he can’t leave the California offices right now. I was meeting with a contractor in town, so I offered to come by and check on you.”

Tony felt his face heat up. Obadiah had convinced his father that Tony could handle the stress of college, that he wouldn’t be led into temptation, and now he was the one Tony was answering to after a stupid slip up. The party hadn’t even been that wild, Tony had escaped at least three house parties busted by the cops, once by hiding above the kitchen ceiling panels for two and a half hours, which had definitely been worse. Hell, he’d learned how to turn morphine into heroin with a group of chemistry majors and carted around their homemade drugs into the bottom of his back pack for three freaking weeks. _This_ was what got him busted - a couple of beers and coeds? _Really_? 

“I’m not leaving MIT,” Tony growled. “So if he sent you here to jerk me out of my classes, tell him he can take his fat wallet and shove it up his ass. I’ll pay my own damn way through school if I have to, prodigal son or not.”

The silence that hung between them stretched out, finally broken by the clink of ice in Obie’s glass.

“I’m not sure where to start with that, Tony.” Obadiah leaned forwards in his seat, almost conspiratorially. “Yes, your father wants you to leave MIT. I feel his decision is... premature, but you’re not helping your case by speaking to me like that.”

If anything, that made Tony feel worse.

“They’re just a few stupid photos!” he exclaimed. “I wasn’t even drinking the beer!”

“You weren’t not drinking the beer, either,” Obie said flatly. “And it’s not _about_ the drink, Tony, I don’t care if you’re knocking back six shots of tequila five nights a week provided your grades don’t slip. Like it or not, you’re a face of Stark Industries, and your actions -”

“Reflect on the family name and the company as a whole, Obie, I _know_. You think dad didn’t sing me to sleep with that song and dance for the first half of my life? Just sue the paper already and let me get some sleep.” 

“The suits already been filed,” Obie said, flatly. “But a lawsuit and a cover up isn’t going to do a lot of good when the entire student body has borne witness to your irresponsibility. You need more than that - you need to whip up some positive press as quickly as possible.”

He cleared his throat. “You also need to apologize to your father.”

“Jesus, Obie, I’m sixteen! My GPA is literally _perfect_. I’ve written an entirely new programming language and filed for three patents in two years,” Tony spread his hands out helplessly. “You want me to apologize to my old man for having a beer with my friends? I think I deserve to have a little fun.”

“Those girls aren’t your friends,” Obadiah said, flatly. “Whoever took that picture made sixteen hundred dollars selling it to that trash magazine.”

Tony froze, lips parted. The words felt like a slap.

“You didn’t think photos like that leak by accident, did you?” Obie stood up, moved over to Tony and pressed him down into the couch with a gentle nudge. Tony let himself sit. “Come on, boy. You’re supposed to be a genius, or whatever the buzzword is these days. _Wunderkind_. ”

“I...” Tony started to speak, then stopped. He looked up at Obadiah with eyes that were just a little bit too dilated. The world was slowing down, his blood was cooling in his veins along with all that righteous indignation he’d felt at his father’s disapproval.

Of course the photos were sold. They’d been taken on someone’s personal camera - it wasn’t something you could stumble upon accidentally; and considering the party had been a closed-door affair, the photographer would have had to approach the magazine... Tony hadn’t known the hosts of the party, though he did know the girls in the photo - it _had_ been off campus. Had he been set up? 

Who’d taken the picture? He’d been so out of it, all he could recall was a smudge of brown hair and laughing eyes...

“Your father’s angry that you’d jeopardize your reputation with this little stunt,” Obadiah admitted, “but he’s also angry that you’re surrounded by people willing to take advantage of you. You’ve gotta be smarter, Tony. You’re Howard’s responsibility. He has complete control over your finances, your ability to attend school, everything - when you do things like this it reflects badly on _him_. You’re young, people will write off your mistakes, to some degree, as teenage antics - but Howard’s parenting is what’s really going to come under fire.”

Tony let out a sharp laugh. “Parenting? What parenting?”

Obadiah almost - not quite, but _almost_ \- rolled his eyes. “Your family is unique, Tony. Howard can’t hold your hand every step of the way, so you can’t forget that people around you will always put their own interests first. They’re not your _friends_ , they don’t care about an uppity too-hot-to-trot sixteen year old because they think you’re _cool_. You’re the richest student in this place, the top of your class, set to inherit a multi billion dollar international company. You’re going places none of them can dream of - in a private jet you built with your own two hands - and they won’t hesitate to use you in any way they can.”

“They’re not all like that,” Tony folds his arms across his chest defensively, thinking of Rhodey. Rhodey laughing over their laboratory table, Rhodey teaching him how to play beer pong, Rhodey jogging five miles every morning in his sweaty ROTC gear.

“Maybe not,” Obadiah dismissed the comment with a shrug, as though it didn’t matter in the slightest. “I haven’t met them. But I can tell you for a fact nobody at _that_ party had your best interests at heart or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Tony ran his suddenly sweaty palms against the thighs of his jeans. “What should I do?”

Obadiah swept a hand over his clean-shaven pate and sighed. “Apologize to your father and hope for the best. Give me something to point the press at. Clean up your act - and if you can’t get clean, then for the love of god don’t get caught.”

Tony looked down, his stomach twisted in knots. “Are you on my side? Obie, you gotta back me up here. Dad will listen to you, he trusts you.”

“I don’t know, Tony. I really thought you were better than this; maybe your father is right. Maybe you need to grow up before you can juggle your lives properly. You wouldn’t be the first prodigy to go a little wild under the weight of his responsibility - but SI can’t afford to let that happen.”

“I’m more good to SI here,” Tony said, leaning towards towards his friend. “I’ve got ideas. My first patent was approved a couple of months ago - it’s a good piece, workable, lots of flexible applications for self-guided tracking systems.”

“Yes,” Obadiah said slowly, rolling the word about in his mouth. His eyes narrowed faintly with though, studying Tony’s earnestly inebriated expression. “You mentioned the patents. Does your father know about them?”

Tony shifted, not meeting the other man’s eyes “Not... not really. I mentioned to mom that I was having someone draw up the paperwork.” 

With a nod Obie headed straight to the literal billion dollar question. “Were you planning to share them with SI?”

“I don’t know,” Tony murmured quietly, the first time he’d admitted that out loud. What he didn’t say was that those patents were the ace up his sleeve - something he could fall back on if his relationship with his father finished its seemingly inevitable disintegration. They were a bargaining chip meant to save his ass.

Maybe it was time to cash them in. Tony looked at Obie, making a decision; he weighed what he knew about his father’s business partner, picked an angle, and went on the offensive.

If Tony knew Obie - and he thought he _did_ \- he'd win this victory by appealing to the older man's wallet rather than his heart.

“I’ll be straight with you, Obie. There were a thousand reasons dad might not let me stay here, and I was saving the patents in case I needed to pay my own way though the rest of my degrees.”

Obie nodded understandingly - he was the kind of man that always had a backup plan, and a backup plan for the backplan. Tony lowered his voice and the man opposite him leaned in, intent. “Besides that, Dad’s healthy as a horse - it’ll be years before he’s ready to give up SI, and I’m not sure I want to wait around in the wings with my thumb up my ass. I’ve thought about striking out on my own, getting into robotics, maybe hooking up with NASA instead of the DOD. Doing something on my own steam, you know?”

His words had the desired effect - a sudden flash of burning terror in the face of Obadiah Stane. “Tony,” he managed, clearly groping for words. “You can’t be serious. You can’t leave SI, the company-“

“It’s not really leaving if I’ve never been on payroll,” Tony said, crossly. “Dad’s been using my ideas wholesale since I was ten without a word of credit. Do you know how many SI contracts my innovations are responsible for? He doesn’t care - hell, he’s holding a year and a half of college over my head like _I_ owe _him_.”

Obadiah stood, paced to the couch, then strode back to the bar and poured a drink. Tony figured he was burning time, giving himself something to do with his hands while trying to figure out his attack strategy... The first finished glass was passed it to Tony, and a few moments later Obadiah settled onto the sofa next to him, slinging an arm around his shoulders. Tony smirked wryly into his glass and took a sip - straight scotch, his father’s drink. 

Ugh.

“Tony, do you know how you and I are different? Do you know how your dad and I are different?” Obadiah asked in his best press-conference voice. Tony shifted uncomfortably. “You’re an engineer - a scientist. You look at things and see what they could become, you process ideas and produce reality. You’re what any company needs at its heart; but a company needs more than a heart. It needs a brain.”

“You’re telling me I’ve got more heart than brains? That’s a laugh,” Tony rolled his eyes, but sipped at the drink just to make a point.

“I’m saying you have a brain for engineering, not a brain for the kind of political bullshit it takes to keep a corporation’s wheels turning. Howard and I work well together because we each play to our strengths - you break away from a system like that and you’re going to make things a hell of a lot harder for yourself. You’ve got a golden opportunity with SI, Tony, you just have to be patient and pull your own weight.”

Beside him, Tony flashed his best skeptical look. “I’m sure I can pay people to worry about that for me - and I'd say I pull ten times my weight at SI."

“Maybe you do - and maybe you could. But I guarantee anyone you hire to run this little startup project won’t do half as well as I could,” Obadiah said, sharply. “Let me see the patents. If they’re good, if you’ll sign them over to SI, they could be exactly the bargaining chip we need to keep you where you want to be. I’m sure once you’ve got a degree or two a chief engineering position will open up _somewhere_ at SI - nobody expects you to work for free, Tony, you’re far too smart for that!”

“Well... but listen, if this doesn’t shake out, I'm gonna need these things to stay in my name...”

“It’ll shake out, Obie grins, offers Tony a hand and hoists him to his feet. “I’ll talk to your old man, we’ll make it work. _I_ don’t take no for an answer,” he chuckles.

Tony nodded, ignoring the dollar signs in Obadiah’s eyes, and fished out the keys from his bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally going to be all Howard and Tony, but it's so fun to write Obie being a smarmy manipulative jerk that he pretty much took things over. Oops.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many thanks to dear friend (and police officer) B, who only rolled his eyes a liiiiiittle bit when he realized exactly why i was picking his brain about police procedures and cocaine charges. True friendship!
> 
> Also, this scene is the reason this fic exists, I don't even know, in my head RDJ's Tony Stark was the Lindsay Lohan of his day...

Speeding ticket number 23 started out exactly the way Tony’s previous 22 moving violations had begun. New (red) car en route to meeting a hot (blond) model/“singer-songwriter” at the newest, hippest club. Flash of lights, blip of siren, and then the young billionaire found himself smiling his best Time Magazine smile into the face of yet another officer of the law. 

_Fucking hell._

The cop (Officer Constancio, Tony’s eidetic memory calmly noted) greeted him with the standard issue boredly-polite-yet-firm “Good evening sir, are you aware of how fast you were driving?”. Given that the guy hadn’t recognized him on sight, Tony pulled his finely pressed Italian leather wallet, flipped out the ID, and began counting the seconds. 

One... two... three... and there it was. Officer Constancio made out the tiny letters and the grinning face next to it, glanced from the license to Tony-in-the-flesh, then took a second look at the newest hot-off-the-assembly-line Ferrari and put two and two together. 

“Mister Stark,” the officer said with (Tony imagined/hoped/listened for) slightly more respect than he’d previously offered. “I’m going to have to ask you to step out of your vehicle.”

“Step out of the vehicle?” Tony asked, schooling his expression into faint surprise. “Of course, officer. Is there a problem?”

“Other than you doing 30 over on an extremely twisty stretch of coastal highway _in the wrong goddamn lane_?”

Tony winced. “Really, thirty over? Is that...”

“Out of the car please, sir.” Okay, so Constancio was going with the Bad Cop routine. He may not have recognized Tony’s face, but the 27 year old genius industrialist’s driving record was the stuff of legends. As was his tendency to (on occasion) over-imbibe... so maybe Constancio thought he’d get lucky.

“Is that all it takes to justify a field sobriety test these days?” Tony poured all the calm, collected confidence he had to spare into the words, silently thanking whatever god might be that he’d been pulled over pre-date rather than post-date. Post-date he wouldn’t have stood a chance, not with the night he had planned.

Tony stepped out of the car - all sleek John Lobbs, charcoal leisure suit, dark red shirt (to match the Ferrari, obviously) and sharp black tie. Knowing his teeth were very straight and white in the moonlight, he smiled.

Unfortunately, that grin was not quite as white as the tiny baggie that, dislodged in the shift, slipped from one pocket and landed guiltily in the roadside gravel beside him.

“Maybe not,” Officer Constancio admitted, “but _that_ sure is. Mr. Stark, please turn to face the car while I retrieve your _possession_.”

He almost smiled as he said that, and Tony suppressed a groan. _Possession_? Really? 

Still, Tony Stark knew all too well that you never got anywhere with the law by being rude... and when this newest trespass inevitably hit the news at least nobody could say he’d been a dick. ~~This time.~~ Tony turned around and pressed his hands to the side of the car as the officer retrieved his baggie of high-grade cocaine.

“Seems like you had an interesting evening planned, Mr. Stark. I’ll need you to keep your hands where I can see them.”

“I did, actually,” Tony said, ruefully. “What line should I use here? ‘Oh, that’s not mine?’ ‘I was carrying it for a friend?’ ‘How did that get there?’” 

“Mister Stark, one should always be completely honest with an officer of the law. May I search your vehicle?”

Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it, this was _not_ the way he wanted his night to end. Tony felt words build up in his chest, and they spilled out of his mouth before his higher conscious could scream and put on the breaks. “Honestly, then? I’ll bet you thirty thousand dollars you can’t land that little baggie out there in the surf.”

Constancio froze. For a moment it was so silent you could actually hear the waves crashing hundreds of feet below. He stared hard at Tony, and Tony - not knowing what else to do - simply looked back at him, wearing his best poker face. _Oh my god,_ he thought, inwardly panicked. _Oh my god, I can't believe I just said that._

A southbound car passed, and the rush of wind jerked the policeman from his stunned astonishment. 

“Did you...” Constancio started, as if he could hardly believe he had to utter these words, “just attempt to bribe a law enforcement official?”

Shit. The press was going to have a field day with this one - but hey, Howard always did go on about _failing big!_ Tony should have offered more, just to give the world something to talk about. “Just.... offering a friendly wager, sir.”

There was another moment of silent standoff. Tony wasn’t sure who was more surprised - himself, or Officer Constancio - when the man suddenly jerked as if his strings had been cut, took the baggie, and hurled it away into the blustery wind. For a moment it was silhouetted against the moonlit sky before hurtling into invisibility below.

Tony’s mouth was actually hanging open when the officer looked back at him, his face suspicious - and expectant. “It worked?” he heard himself say. “Wow. I really didn’t... it _worked_.”

He choked back the words when he realized the officer in question was currently staring at him as if he'd just as soon toss Tony off the cliff face as speak with him. 

“Uh,” Tony said eloquently, entirely uncertain of how to proceed. Well, in for a penny in for a pound, right? “Would you prefer cash or check?”

They settled the details on the hood of the car - Tony scratching down relevant numbers and addresses into the notepad he kept in the glove compartment (in case of sudden technical inspiration) while Officer Constancio looked nervously over his shoulder every few moments, jumping with each passing vehicle. His radio buzzed off and on with chatter Tony only half understood, and he glared at it every so often until the officer took the hint and cranked down the volume. Once their transaction had been arranged to both parties’ satisfaction, Tony stuck out his hand to seal the deal.

Constancio looked down, looked up, then calmly ignored Tony's outstretched palm. “I... I wouldn’t normally do a thing like this,” he said, deep lines cut into his face around his eyes. “It’s just that my daughter was just diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. I don’t....” 

And then his mouth twisted, as if he’d come to his senses and realized how ludicrous it was to be apologizing to a sleazy industrialist in an overpriced suit who’d just thrown away a bag of cocaine along with thirty thousand dollars for the sake of meeting his supermodel date on time.

That expression made Tony feel like an absolute shithead.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said anyway. And then - god, he really didn’t want to know, what was it with his mouth tonight - asked: “What’s her name?”

Constancio looked down at the note Tony had handed him, folded it in half sharply, and looked away. “Maria.”

Oh.

Tony scrambled for something to say. Something - what, condolences? Reassurances? Bribing a police official had been more entertaining when Tony thought the bastard was just greedy; now the whole thing felt somehow dirty, like he was taking advantage of the man’s situation just for shits and giggles. _I didn’t know,_ he reminded himself. _And feeling guilty is better than jail, right?_ “Well, why not think of it as a gift,” he said, awkwardly dropping his hands. “Just a gift.”

“Enjoy your evening, Mr. Stark. I advise you to hire a driver if you're planning a night on the town.”

Constancio ripped off the top ticket from his pad and shoved it at Tony, then turned to walk back to his car. He climbed in, the heavy tinting and bright headlights making his face invisible in the darkness. Tony scanned his eyes down the ticket, sucking on his cheek with displeasure when he tallied up several hundred dollars worth of moving violations... and quite possibly enough legal red tape to get his license revoked again.

Thirty thousand dollars didn’t buy what it used to.

He climbed back into the car and sped - (well, not really, one ticket an evening was quite enough) out into the darkness.

Post-date (God, this woman felt like an oven, it should be illegal to produce that much body heat) he crawled out of bed, padded into the living room, and made a midnight call to his accountant.

(These things happened from time to time. Tony had his own line, and it never rolled to voicemail.)

A groggy man at the other end answered, voice creaky and dry. “Mister Stark?”

“Rick, I want fifty thousand dollars donated to ... I don’t know, some kind of foundation for research on cystic fibrosis. Tomorrow. Anonymous, but tag it “for Maria”.”

“Maria,” Rick confirmed in his usual, unflappable way. Tony liked that about Rick; he got so tired of answering questions two or three times just because his staff couldn’t keep up with his logic, but Rick never had to be told twice.

“Will that be all, sir?”

“That’s it. Lemme know when it goes through,” Tony said, and hung up.

Tony stood silently in the living room a moment, staring out the stars twinkling through the house's massive oceanside windows, then turned. His options were bed-with-a-stranger or buried-in-the-workshop... not exactly Sophie’s choice.

He went straight for the workshop and didn't look back.


	4. Chapter 4

“Don’t make me go, Pepper. Please. I’ll give you a bonus - no, I’ll give you a raise! I’ll _promote_ you, just - just don’t make me go.” 

Tony was sprawled over the couch in the Malibu house, three separate tablets balanced in precarious positions all around him, each projecting various spinning holographic technical blueprints and one displaying what looked suspiciously like a twitter feed. The slouching posture was classic Tony: disheveled hair, bags under his eyes, a lit cigarette slowly smoking down to nothing in the SI ashtray on the coffee table. The look he cast Pepper was baleful at best, pathetic at worst.

Pepper Potts, the World’s Most Effective Woman and God’s Gift to Stark Industries, leaned against his doorframe with a frown. She looked like a spread from a Coach catalogue - expensive pumps, nylons with a seam up the back, slim pencil skirt and short, single-button suit jacket in midnight blue. It made her face look lovely, a soft, pale smudge framed by an expensive silk scarf. Tony liked the scarf - it made him think of his mother; but on a day like today, everything made him think of his mother. 

Maybe Pepper would like a strand of pearls for Christmas; he’d like to buy her pearls, preferably a set that were outlandishly expensive. He jotted that down on one of the tablets and added a request for Jarvis to order a nice set of Mikimotos before her huffing sigh pulled him back to the present.

“Why do you do this, Mr. Stark?”

“What do you mean _why do I do this_? Why do I do what? Please don’t make me go.”

Her lips purse together in a beautiful pout, and he wished - for the umpteenth time - that she’d let him sleep with her. He’d tried - god damn, had he _ever_ tried - but she was simply too smart for it. Her constant evasions and the demure way she shook her head and laughed at his passes meant that by now the attempts were cursory, like a cat swiping at a mouse he knows is out of reach.

Not that Pepper was mousy in any way, shape, or form; he couldn’t stop staring at her long, lean legs.

“I can’t _make_ you do anything, you’re my boss, I just.... I just don’t understand why you agree to these things, you know exactly when and where they are - “

“I don’t always, sometimes I -“

“You have a photographic memory!” Pepper exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air as if that said it all. One hand is clinging to a clipboard covered in what Tony knows are highly confidential, time sensitive documents she’ll want signed before his flight to New York... Maybe he could bribe her with completed paperwork?

Nah - Pepper was too clever to let him hold that over her head. Whether or not he agreed to sign, he’d be ushered onto the plane and forced to give up hours of his life for the sake of some stupid charity benefit, forced to rub elbows with the nouveau rich and laugh at their stupid jokes and inept attempts to eek out trading tips on their SI stock. 

It just so happened that in this case said ‘stupid charity’ was the organization he’d founded and named after his mother, which (in his admittedly biased eyes) did an absurd amount of good in the world. The benefit was a no-holds-barred gala that would celebrate her life on the anniversary of her birth. It would necessitate speeches about her legacy, about their relationship, about Howard; and while Tony could give that sort of speech in his sleep (having rehearsed the lines for years and years) it didn’t ever get any easier.

He hated those speeches. He hated smiling and laughing and pretending to reminisce, he hated speaking fondly of Howard in the context of their little family unit; but most of all he hated the way that each and every time he spoke of his mother in past tense it felt like she slipped a little further away. 

Tomorrow Maria Stark would have (should have) turned sixty five. It was painful to think about what she might have looked like had she lived long enough to crease her face with laugh lines. He wondered if she would have dyed her hair or let it go salt-and-pepper gray the way her own mother’s had. Tony had only met his grandmother twice, but he remembered the way her eyes crinkled up in the corners and the shock of white at her temple that she swept up into a bun. 

He looked at Pepper desperately. “I can’t go, Pep. It will be horrible.”

“It’s a charity gala, Mr. Stark. A party _you happen to be hosting,_ or did you forget that the Maria Stark Foundation is your baby? Besides, you ... you love parties,” she said, exasperated. Pepper was terribly pretty when she was frustrated; hell, she might actually get prettier the more frustrated she became. Tony liked that about her - it was practically a prerequisite for the people in his life. Well, the women at least, Obie certainly didn’t get any prettier when he was pissed... there was that vein over his left eye that just...

“What am I supposed to tell them?” Pepper asked. She’d gone from hands-flung-into-the-air to standing akimbo in a way that made her waist look deliciously tiny.

“Tell them I have the flu, or something. Strep. Mono. Cancer. I don’t care - but I definitely could possibly be sick, and I would hate to infect their generous attendees with my plague. Trust me. I’m a doctor.”

“Having a doctorate - “

“Multiple doctorates, technically - 

“- does _not_ qualify you to give medical advice - but if that’s the story you want me to run with, I expect you to stay in for the next few days. If you skip out and then go galavanting about Los Angeles the press - “

“Will be happy as pigs in shit, come on, it’s been months without a Tony Stark style fuck-up; if I don’t throw them a bone to chew on they’ll just invent their own scandal, and I’m not sure my ego can stand another story about my secret cross-dressing habits.”

Pepper studied him for a long moment, his face, the tablets, the smudged cigarette butts. Her expression softened and she worried at the inside of her cheek - a subconscious habit that Tony found especially endearing. To his surprise she drew closer and settled opposite him, crossing her legs and setting the clipboard on the couch beside her. 

“I thought you were quitting,” she tipped her chin at the cigarettes and Tony gave her a half-hearted shrug.

“Quitting is for quitters, and we all know quitters suck.”

Her mouth quirks up. “Adventures in self-loathing with Tony Stark - you should still quit. Are you sure you can’t be convinced to go? They're all planning to see you there. You're in the _programs_.”

“I’m sure.” Tony dropped his eyes back to his schematics; he really should to stop talking. He would just crush his emotions down deep and pretend like Pepper’s piercing blue eyes didn’t cut through him, pretend like she didn’t deserve an actual explanation - but he failed. It’d been eating him for the past few weeks anyway, in the way it always did only worse because of the whole _sixty five_ thing and the other whole _holy shit I’ve almost spent more time in my life without my parents than with them_ thing. “I just.... I go to these stupid benefits every year, and every year there are fewer and fewer people who actually knew her, you know? I sit there and I listen to people talk about what she would have wanted and liked and been proud of, but they don’t have any fucking idea, do they? They don’t know. _I_ don’t know, and I spent nineteen years of my life with the woman.”

Pepper’s pretty eyes were very wide as he paused for breath. It was rare that Tony managed to shock her these days, so even his week-long funk didn’t diminish the satisfaction at the way her mouth opened, closed, then opened again.

“I know she would have wanted _something_ like this - she was always trying to make Dad reach out and give, but if I wanted to be the one writing her name all over everything I wouldn’t have signed the damn Foundation over to an independent board of directors.”

Pepper groped for her voice, still looking like a puff of wind might blow her over. “Mister Stark...”

“Will you _ever_ start calling me Tony?” Tony asked plaintively for the hundredth, maybe even thousandth time. His demanding tone is evidently all it takes to snap Pepper back into her comfort zone; she straightened up and looked at him thoughtfully before trying the name.

“Tony...”

“Was that so hard?”

She ignored the interruption - it looks like they’re having a Moment, then. “Are you alright?”

 _That_ brought Tony up short. Was he alright? He couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked him that question. He thought about it for a long moment and noticed that there were a lot of _“What are you working ons”_ and _“are those schematics finished”_ from Obie, whereas Rhodey’s usual inquiries were more along the lines of _”what the hell’s going on, man”_ and _”did you just slip that dude a hundred bucks??”_ Pepper’s questions were almost always work-related, with the occasional existential crisis of the _”why do i do this to myself you are just impossible”_ variety thrown in for good measure. JARVIS asked lots of questions, but knew better than to stray into personal inquiries unless Tony’s vitals were spiked or erratic and something needed to be done about it.

 _Was_ he alright?

After a moment’s thought he decided that didn’t feel any better or worse than usual, really. He was just ... angry. He was angry that the universe had traded him his mother for a charity, as if all the good the Maria Stark foundation did would somehow offset the good she wasn’t here to do herself. He was angry that he had to go give a speech instead of buy a gift, and angry that he still missed her when it had been decades and jesus, at some point you’d think he’d at least forget the scent of her favorite perfume.

“I’m fine,” he said, proud of how evenly it came out. “I just... don’t want to go.”

Pepper studied his face a moment longer, something in her expression shifting dangerous close to pity. 

_Pity is an ugly word,_ thought Tony. _Let’s call it sympathy._

“Well, congratulations, Mr. Stark. You just talked yourself out of a dinner party. Even your long-standing commitment to the Maria Stark Foundation can’t come before your health; just... do me a favor and lay low this weekend? It’s only three days. Crank the ACDC and stay out of the papers.... if not for your own reputation, do it for mine?”

Tony blew her a kiss. “You’re a saint, Pepper, I may actually have you canonized - I’ll be good. I’ll be _so_ good.”

"Canonized? Tony, I'm pretty sure you have to be dead for that to work."

"You say that, but how many black AMEXes do you think the Pope's seen this week?"

He was good, though, because it was for her.

-

Two days later, Pepper let herself into the workshop and slapped a set of photographs down on the nearest clear tabletop. When Tony didn’t look up, she snapped her fingers and JARVIS - in a clear show of favoritism - muted the volume on the blasting music. That was enough to get anyone’s attention, and Tony nearly dropped his soldering iron in surprise. “Hey, Pep, isn’t there enough at SI to keep you busy on this fine Sunday or - “

“Your plane,” Pepper started to speak, a funny little twist in her voice. _That_ wasn’t normal.... Tony set down the soldering iron and stood; it was only when he drew closer that he realized her hands were shaking, her eyes were red - had she been crying? Pepper _never_ cried.

“My plane?” he prompted, folding her hand it into his own and pulling her closer. “What about my plane? What’s wrong?”

Pepper waved mutely at the photos, so Tony slid his other hand around her back and drew her to the table with him. She leaned into his arm in a way she never did - she smelled nice, soft and fruity, and _shit_ , was that - ? 

Tony’s breath hissed through his teeth as he studied the pictures, silently placing them into his mental map of the Stark jet’s innards. Several wires had very clearly been re-routed, others were hanging loose in a way they were never meant to - and worse, the ends were sharp and smooth. This was clearly the work of wire-cutters and not just normal wear and tear (as if anything Tony designed would be showing wear and tear after seven months of usage).

He stared at the damage and imagined the resulting mechanical failure through to its inevitable conclusion. The thought left him squeezing Pepper a little bit harder.

“Someone sabotaged my plane,” Tony said at last. Pepper pushed her face into his shoulder, her body hitching with a sob.

Someone had sabotaged his plane. Who the hell...?

“If... if I’d made you go on Thursday...” Pepper began, and the sentence didn’t need finishing. Tony wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she pressed her face into his neck.

Someone had known he’d be flying to New York for the benefit. Okay, that wasn’t hard to guess considering it was such a special event, the yearly gala combined with his mother’s birthday for the first time in ten years. His eyes traced the lines in the photos again - would their pre-flight checks have caught the tampering? It seemed like they would, so if this was an honest-to-god assassination attempt there had to be more to it. If it had been Tony doing the killing, he would have placed something somewhere in the jet that would generate false instrument readings in the cockpit and trust that if any unusual tech was unearthed in the ruins of Tony Stark’s private plane nobody would think twice.

The jet would have to be broken down completely, just to be sure. Hell, maybe he’d just buy a new one.

Pepper was still shaking, and Tony let himself stroke her hair absently. “You didn’t let me go, Pep.”

“But I tried to - I tried to talk you into - “

“You couldn’t have known, you were just doing your job... unlike the security as SI. Really, what’s the point of having a private fucking airstrip if security lets shit like this happen?”

Pepper allowed him to rock her gently against him, her fingers curled in his shirt; she was warm and smelled faintly of cinnamon. “If we hadn’t gone to install the upgraded sat-nav system, Tony, we’d never have found it.”

“Thank god for small mercies, right? Or at least, thank Rhodey, for reminding me our navigational systems were no longer state of the art. Anyway, I didn’t go. It all worked out just fine.” Tony had always been terrible at this whole comforting/soothing/human response thing, but for Pepper’s sake he was willing to try. She sniffled into his shoulder for a time, and it was actually sort of nice to have an excuse to be close to her in a non-lecherous way. 

It had been a long, long while since he’d hugged someone and meant it.

Pepper broke away at last, dabbing at her eyes and then laughing when DUM-E appeared at her side and pushed a box of kleenex into her thigh. Tony watched her thank the robot absently and wipe away the tear-tracks with carefully manicured fingers, shocked by how much she actually cared. 

Her hands fell to the photos again and she picked one up, shaking her head. “Who would do a thing like this?” 

“C’mon, Pep,” Tony tried to laugh, but the sound was hollow. “Do you really need to ask who’d want me dead? That’s a long goddamn list.”

Pepper looked back at him, those blue eyes all soft and sweet and full of what was most _definitely_ not pity. “Oh, Tony.”

He turned away and shook his head. Oh, Tony, indeed.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve Rogers slammed his hand into the basement laboratory’s access panel so hard the glass actually cracked. Tony shot up out of his chair, whirling around and brandishing his soldering iron like a sword; he didn’t relax when he saw that his visitor was Steve.

“Oh, hey, so knocking isn’t a thing you did in the forties or -“

Steve stormed past several million dollars worth of fabrication equipment and straight up to Tony, face flushed, t-shirt clinging to his broad shoulders and thick chest. He towered over the older man in a way that was not at all unappealing. Tony scrambled for a good secondary jab - something about giraffes? Bulls in china shops? Nah, that was lame, even for him.

In the end Tony had very little time to admire the scenery, as Steve immediately reached for him as though he’d like to wring his neck. 

“Stark, we need to have a conversation.” 

It was probably meant to be an order, but the tremble in Steve’s voice made it sound more like a request. Tony reached up and patted Steve’s outstretched fingers in a way that made the taller man jerk them away as though he’d been burned.

“I’ve always got time for you, Capsicle,” Tony said, sweetly. “What do you need?”

“I need - “ Steve started, huffed out a breath, then started again. “I need to know why the _hell_ -“ Oh, nice, swearing three seconds in! This was going to go well. “-you bought me a _call girl_ for my birthday.”

“So this is about Anastasia? What, she not your type? I’ve got a cute redhead in my little black book too, but I’ve sort of sworn off gingers lately.”

“You’re supposed to be a genius, Stark, what made you think I’d enjoy...“ Steve couldn’t seem to bring himself to say the word ‘call girl’ again. Tony made a valiant attempt at keeping a straight face, but _god_ it was hard. “...that I’d enjoy something like that? There’s nothing I’ve said or done to you that suggested I was even remotely comfortable with the way you live your life. I don’t think I’ve ever been so.... so....”

“....turned on?” Tony suggested hopefully. Steve spluttered, and his benefactor knew he was at least partially correct. _Hot_. “Look, I get it, you were surprised by the happy ending, but technically she’s not a hooker, she’s a massage therapist who happens to be extremely gifted at working out _all_ your kinks.” Tony’s grin widened to a point that was positively shark-like. “Did you enjoy it?”

Steve just stared at him, then ran a hand through his thick blond hair. “So _embarrassed_. I didn’t do anything with her, Tony, that’s _disgusting_. The massage was nice, but I opened my eyes and she was ... was undressed and... ”

Tony’s mental image of this scene was worth every penny of Anastasia’s hourly rate. 

“I told you before - you seemed so stressed out by this whole adjusting-to-the-20th-century thing, and juggling Fury’s demands with PR appearances is a nightmare in and of itself, so I thought you could use a little stress relief. Anastasia’s good for that.” Tony spread his hands as if this was the most natural course of events in the world.

“I realize that we don’t know each other well, Stark, but can I just let you know that talking to women has _never, ever relaxed me_?”

“You don’t talk to Anastasia, that’s the beauty of it, she’s just there and she does her thing and then you get to do your thing and everyone goes home happy. I honestly thought you would enjoy it,” he added, and the last part was true; if Tony couldn’t be the one with his hand all over those huge freaking deltoids he wasn't going to be selfish. Steve deserved a chance to blow off some steam, and considering he never went out to bars and only attended parties in a professional capacity, Tony figured he rarely got the chance. 

Fighting with the Avengers always left Tony shot through with adrenaline, and since Pepper left he’d realized just how often he’d worked out that tension with a partner. Tumbling her into bed post-battle had been one of his favorite superhero perks; Cap hadn’t had that opportunity. It was just sad.

“I have to admit,” Tony shook his head, “I’m pretty impressed by your self-control... She gave you _that_ kind of rub down - and I know exactly what kind of rub down it was, stop blushing, it was _good_ and -“

“You mean you and her... you’ve paid to...”

“Well, yeah,” Tony shrugged. “You don’t buy a car without test-driving it first, and I’d hate for your birthday booty to suck in the _bad_ way.” 

Steve made a strange little noise at that, which steadfastly Tony ignored. Cap was hot, bothered, and Tony really shouldn’t be enjoying it so much...

“It’s been a while, if that’s what you’re worried about, and I’m pretty sure the sloppy seconds statute of limitations has-“

“This is why you own your own massage table,” Steve realized aloud, and an emotion Tony had never seen there before crossed his face of its own accord. The blond gave him a look that was one part disgust, two parts... interest? Curiosity? Or maybe that was a slightly different variant of disgust, one Tony just wasn’t quite familiar with.

He just grinned, smugly, in response.

Steve swallowed and pressed his face into his hand. “And the mirrors.... god, that’s the most voyeuristic... narcissistic...”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Tony agreed.

Speaking of voyeurism, the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist was pretty sure the cameras had been rolling in tower’s relaxation center at the time of Steve’s massage appointment. He made a mental note to preserve those feeds for posterity - it was bound to be incredibly hot, incredibly hilarious, or both.

Probably both.

“Tony, that’s just... that’s ... very _wrong_ ,” Steve groped for words and ran a hand through his thick blond hair. 

“Look, masseuses of her calibre her are hard to find. She can’t weigh more than 120 pounds soaking wet, but she’s got a real gift. For someone as built as you ashiatsu is the _only_ deep tissue massage worth paying for... unless you’re down with a dude the size of a linebacker throwing his elbows into the mix. And those feet,” he grins, wriggling his fingers. “Girl can do amazing things with her feet. Seriously.”

Steve was staring at his mouth as if he couldn’t believe Tony was still talking. “You bought me a ... a ... _used_... that's not right, what do you even call that - ugh. Never mind. I don't want to know.”

“Steve, I hate to break it to you, but they’re _all_ used. If they say they aren’t, you’ve paid a hell of a premium or she’s lying through her teeth.” Tony waved the thought away, as though Steve’s horrified expression of disbelief was a thank you. “Anyway, you know what they say, use it or lose it and she’s good at _everything_ she does so-“

“Tony, _I’m Captain America_. I don’t pay women for sex. You can’t do things like this to me,” Steve’s face was the color of his shield. “Your reputation is one thing, but don’t involve me in your bad habits!”

“Well, technically _I_ paid for it - and believe me, her non-disclosure agreement was longer than your contract with SHIELD. Nobody will ever know.”

“That’s what she said,” Steve mumbled in disbelief, and Tony burst out laughing. Steve - who had picked up on the general gist of _that’s what she said_ from Clint and Tony’s incessant overuse of the line - scowled even more deeply. “I don’t ... I don’t understand you. The massage was thoughtful, and it did feel good, but how is paying for sex even remotely fulfilling?”

“It’s not like I have a lot of other options at the moment,” Tony pointed out, wryly. “I’m a little busy inventing the future and saving the planet and getting dumped by the world’s most attractive redhead in my downtime.”

“Tony...” Steve said, voice softening. He stepped forwards as though he wanted nothing more than to give Tony a hug, then appeared to realize what he was doing and stepped back again. His hands came up, fingers lacing together, then dropped back to his sides - he clearly had no idea where to put his hands while discussing sex with a teammate. _You oughta be used to it by now big guy_ , Tony thought, wryly. With Clint and Thor around sex jokes were just par for the course.

Steve took a deep breath, bolstering his words until it he was dangerously near his Captain America Field Commander voice. “I get it that you meant well, and I appreciate that you’re concerned for my.... health ... but that doesn’t change the fact that you put me in an extremely uncomfortable position. I understand, now, that things like this are how you express-“

Oh god, Tony could think of a few uncomfortable positions he’d like to put Steve in, and they would have been a _much_ better birthday present. Since the world wasn’t perfect, though, maybe he’d just head up to his room and watch the feeds of Anastasia rubbing eucalyptus oil all over Steve’s pectorals and pretend that life _was_ fair.

“-really do, I get the teasing, but we’ve been working together for months and saved the world repeatedly, so the limit on hazing is definitely up. There’s a line, Tony, and hiring me a call girl is _so past the line_ and are you even listening to me? Tony?”

Tony snapped back at the sound of his first name. Wait, were they on a first name basis now? “Hey, so you didn’t hit it, right? Did she leave?”

“Tony,” Steve’s face flushed all over again - all that righteous indignation had partially killed the blush, but now it was back in full force and disappeared enticingly beneath the collar of his shirt. “I - okay. Okay. I can’t have this conversation with you right now. I’m leaving.”

With that, Steve Rogers turned and stalked towards the door. At least this time he was gentle when he tapped the access panel, otherwise they would have had glass _everywhere_.

“Okay, go, but you’re wasting a pair of _perfectly good feet!_ ” Tony shouted after him, just because he could.

Steve disappeared up the stairs and Tony settled back in his chair, scratching at his beard. 

Huh. Something about that conversation had been just a little.... off.

Shrugging, he pulled out his phone and called up Anastasia - turned out she was waiting in her car outside. Beautiful, smart, _available_ , not his CEO, not his teammate and pseudo-commander... simple.

In the end he doubles her tip, and if she wonders why he's so curious about what she did with Captain Rogers she never lets it show.


	6. Chapter 6

Tony wasn’t sure if the sudden uptick in crazed, violently insane experimental scientists should impress or embarrass him. He’d spent several years at MIT (arguably the university campus with the most intelligent, ground-breaking scientific minds on the planet) and _not once_ had any of his peers made an active attempt to create a towering death-robot or chemical super-steroid. They’d thought about it, sure, but in the same way you wondered “what would happen if I drove off this overpass” or “how high can I get my blood-alcohol content without dying”. It wasn’t the sort of question that really needed answering.

The scientific community these days had absolutely no self-restraint. Tony had never been a big believer in the “curiosity killed the cat” philosophy, but these days he gave it a little credit - you sort of had to when curiosity resulted in hideously mutated twelve foot tall former graduate students with an axe to grind.

The kid - no, it was weird to think of it that way - the _monster_ was huge and slimy and covered in what appeared to be slick, disgusting pores and a carapace-like shell tacked onto his back that just so happened to be bullet, repulsor, and arrow proof. A set of ropey appendages that Tony couldn’t help but mentally classify as tentacles sprouted from the back of its neck and were apparently prehensile enough to let the damn thing climb buildings Doc Ock style, leaving behind a thick trail of slime. 

_Seriously, ew_.

An explosion rocked the building behind him and Iron Man’s sensors detected a number of stone gargoyles plummeting towards the civilian-scattered sidewalk. He hooked a sharp left, poured his energy into the boots, calculated trajectory and shot forwards, hooking his arms around two men and hauling them out of harm’s way. Stone cracked on stone and sent up thick clouds of gritty dust, so Tony automatically flicked the HUD over to a heat-based visual and shot towards the monstrously mutation currently hurling cars at Captain America.

“HOLD STILL,” cackled the raging biomedical graduate student, muscles straining and creaking as he hoisted a vehicle one-handed, his wriggling neck-appendages hoisting a second in reserve.

“Not today,” Steve grunted, leaping sideways and rolling to his feet and bracing for another flying car. Before the Toyota could go airborne, one of Clint’s arrows sprouted from its side, blinked twice, and exploded. The shot perfectly pierced (of course) the Corolla’s gas tank and the resulting explosion was large enough to blow their assailant back the opposite wall, knocking Tony from his feet.

Unfortunately, it was also large enough to sear the _shit_ out of Tony’s retinas. God damn it, that heat-sensitive HUD had been a _mistake_ , what'd he been thinking?! Tony staggered to the ground, grinding out a strangled cry of pain as his metal hands came up to automatically shield his eyes. Flying blind, he groped for his bearings, angled in the direction he thought was upwards, and - 

Something wrapped around the suit’s leg. Before JARVIS could even articulate the proximity alarm Tony was being hauled bodily across the pavement, metal shrieking against concrete, stars exploding in the black spots in his vision.

“JARVIS! Fire thrusters! Full power to the right boot!” Tony howled, shoving his free foot flat against the pavement. He went airborne but remained tethered to the creature in a fashion that resembled an Iron Man shaped balloon. The tentacle (ugh, this day just kept getting better and better) tightened and several sensors in his left boot popped and sizzled before the thruster gave out entirely and Tony slammed back into the ground with enough force to crack his teeth.

“Big Ugly’s got a hand on Iron Man, concentrate fire on the appendages!” Someone shouted over the comlink. Tony thought it must have been Steve, and did he sound worried? How touching. 

Iron Man rolled himself over and began firing blindly in the direction of the suit’s damaged boot, hoping for a lucky strike to sever the slimy thing. He knew he'd connected at least once because there was a pained shriek punctuated by a roar and a tug that would have dislocated his hip if it weren’t for the suit’s protective shell.

“Iron Man, you’re firing erratically, C&D or we can’t get in close!” 

His vision - spotty and painful - was slowly returning, so took a few disorienting moments for Tony to realize he was now dangling upside down. Cap’s shield blurred past his face, cutting a deep gouge into the slippery rope of flesh and the entire tentacle flinched back, dropping Iron Man head-first towards the pavement three yards below.

Tony braced his shoulder an prepared to roll away when a meaty oversized hand reached out and snapped shut around his torso. “NOT SO FAST, STARK,” bellowed the monster’s entirely too self-satisfied voice. The suit’s hands went up to automatically fight the grip around his upper body and he fired his repulsors point-blank into flesh, taking grim satisfaction in the way the thing screamed. 

The grip slipped and Tony slid down, but then the hand closed around his throat and started to squeeze. There was another nearby explosion and Tony could hear gunfire, felt the scraping impact of a few stray bullets against the armor’s shoulders and upper arms. There was a _whumpf_ and a groan in his ear and Tony, clawing at the arm holding him aloft, caught sight of Cap being thrown bodily into an adjacent building.

“Give me one good reason not to pop your head like an oversized grape,” the villain chortled, flecks of green foam smeared across his face. Half-bald slime-monster was _not_ a good look for Cornell’s biomedical engineering program.

The spots in his vision were back. Tony banged weakly at the hands but couldn’t manage more than a sputtering gasp in response. Being strangled really took the fun out of witty banter, didn't it?

“Hyper-oxygenating armor’s air supply,” Jarvis observed, and god, best AI ever.

“I can’t HEAR you,” the creature laughed, lifting him higher. “What, don’t tell me the brilliance of my biomutating serum has left _the great Tony Stark_ speechless!! And to think, my professor _flunked me_ for it!”

 _I’m choking to death, you fucking moron,_ Tony thought darkly as the creature continued to gloat and squeeze, and squeeze, and _fuck_. There were more sharp pops at his throat as the casing of the suit began to tent inwards, jutting painfully into his flesh. That eloquent thought was closely followed by an _oh god, I’m about to have my throat crushed by an emotionally constipated coed. Fuck my life._

“Sir, the structural integrity of the gorget has been compromised; at present rate of pressure increase the suit will be untenable in fifteen seconds.”

More screaming. _"STARK!!!"_

Tony blasted blindly with the repulsors and tried to order Jarvis to divert power to the unibeam with a voice that wouldn’t come. Red crept into the corners of his vision, first a smudge and then a flood. His last memory was of the HUD flickering and popping out of existence and everything went blissfully, silently black.

 

-

 

Tony woke up days later to a headache so severe he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes. There was a constant (and brain-splitting) blipping to his left; a heart monitor. His entire body was stiff in a way that suggested he needed to thank a hefty dose of painkillers for being able to feel anything but agony - he lifted his hands to his face, felt a bandage taped carefully across his nose and up the left side of his face, then trailed his hands down to the thick, constant pressure at his throat.

His fingers met something cold, plastic, and _tight_. In a flash the memories came flooding back; the slime-monster, a massive hulk-sized hand closing on his throat, the claustrophobic crunch of the suit crushing in around him. Tony’s eyes snapped open and he began fitfully scrabbling at his throat, headache subsiding in the rush of adrenaline that came with the desperate need to _get whatever this was the hell off his neck_.

“Tony!”

He was choking, he couldn’t breathe, there wasn’t enough air in the world to fill his lungs, everything was tight and hard and sharp and Steve’s face was hovering over his own, blue eyes flooded with surprise.

The machine next to him began to scream out a warning as Tony’s vitals skyrocketed into a full-fledged panic attack. 

“Get a doctor!” someone shouted. “Tony, hey, look at me - you’re safe, it’s a neck-brace and it’s just a precaution because of the - Tony, you’ve got to settle down, you’re going to-“

Nurses appeared, syringes slipped into the IV drip, and everything went from hard and panicked to fuzzy and soft, then, sleep.

 

\--

 

When Tony woke again the pressure on his throat was gone and a gentle hand was carding through his hair. It felt fantastic - soft, comforting, and intimate in a way he’d missed desperately. He drew in an experimental breath and found his hand automatically coming to his throat; when his fingers touched skin he felt his own pulse fluttering beneath and let out a sigh of relief. 

The carding fingers stopped, slipped down to his hand, and very carefully pulled it away from his neck. They were too big to be Pepper’s. 

_Hospital,_ Tony thought blankly, cracking his eyes to stare skyward - judging by the pattern of the ceiling tiles he guessed he was at New York Presbyterian in Midtown. 

The machine at his side picked up slightly and then eased down into the same slow blipping that had been filling his dreams for hours. The hand - still wrapped around his own in a massive, comforting way - gave his fingers a squeeze. “You alright?” 

Tony felt a shimmer of relief run through him - he’d hoped it would be _that_ voice attached to those hands, to that touch. He tried to move his head for a view of Steve’s face, but discovered he’d been fitted into a deep, thick pillow. It conformed around his skull, effectively bracing his head without touching his throat, and made it impossible to meet Steve’s gaze. 

Steve - bless the man - seemed to know just what he wanted. He leaned into his frame of view with a quirked half-smile than sent soft heat curling through Tony’s body - better than codeine, better than weed, better than _anything_. “Welcome back.”

Tony started to ask what had happened, but Cap - no, Steve, he was wearing one of those sinfully tight white shirts he loved so much over jeans in a way that was clearly off-duty - raised a hand to silence him. “I don’t know how much you can remember, let me give you a run down before you start with the questions. You were injured in our last battle. The monster - was really just a kid who discovered the hard way that snail DNA should never be spliced and ingested - had you by the throat. The Iron Man helmet caved on one side and we... well, we thought your neck was broken,” he said, voice gone low with remembered fear. Tony watched it play across his face and rather selfishly refused to let go of his hand.

 _Please don’t tell me I went and broke my neck,_ Tony thought desperately. His mouth worked but no sound came out; just a creaking, coughing puff of air. That definitely wasn’t normal.

Beside him the heart monitor skipped a bit faster as fear began to wrap itself around his brain. _Pepper is going to kill me - maybe not in an angry girlfriend way, but definitely in an angry CEO kind of way, and that might be worse - she always said I'd break my neck in the suit,_ he thought desperately, moving his fingers back to his throat to make sure was still there. It didn’t feel broken. Wouldn’t that hurt? How many painkillers was he on?

“He managed to crush your windpipe,” Steve said, softly, his hand resting where Tony’s fingers had left it settled on his chest. He reached out and - to Tony’s surprise - took his hand back possessively. “You’ve been unconscious for the better part of a week. They kept you under, put you a ventilator and did some kind of crazy temporary tracheobronchial support using tiny balloons that they slipped into your throat and inflated to prevent things from collapsing, it was really -“

Tony’s eyes must have flown wide at that because Steve stopped talking, clearly embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to... whatever they did, it worked. You’re breathing normally, but you’ve sustained some fairly severe muscle damage, and your vocal chords are severely swollen and bruised, so - um - they said it may be a while before you can speak again.”

Tony mouthed the words “how long?” and watched Steve study his lips, trying to piece together his meaning. _How long?_ he tried again, slower.

“How long?” Tony tried to nod, but the pillow kept him from moving more than a fraction of an inch. His frustrated grunt came out as a huff so sharp it was painful. “Don’t know. Depends on the swelling, but anything you do to exacerbate the damage will just add to the healing time. You’re on a liquid diet, by the way, no smoking or alcohol. It’ll take time - they said your throat would be pretty raw after all the stuff they’ve been shoving down it.” 

Even silent and immobilized, Tony managed to raise an eyebrow suggestively at that poor choice of words. It earned him a Steve Laugh, so it was totally worth the effort.

 _I can’t believe you’re not lecturing me,_ Tony thought as hard as he could in Steve’s direction; no use, though. Telepathy was never in his deck of cards. It’d only been three minutes but he could already tell this whole _no speaking_ thing was going to drive him up the freaking wall.

Pursing his lips, he scans the room for his possessions - more specifically, for his Starkphone. He may not be able to talk, but he could certainly text like a motherfucker... 

Steve saw him looking around and mistook his meaning. “Tasha’s still in Germany, I sent the others home. After it became clear the surgeries had worked it seemed unnecessary to keep them all here, and after you panicked the first time you came out of it, the doctors thought a crowd might be overwhelming. You’re stuck with me, at least until they release you, which technically has to be at least 72 hours after your procedure and you’ve got fourteen to go.”

Tony gaped at the other man, then let his shoulders quiver with a silent, breathy laugh; since he wasn’t operating at full lung capacity it came dangerous close to turning into another gasp. 

Steve’s brows lifted into peaks. “What’s so funny?” he asked, leaning in towards Tony’s mouth.

Tony stared at those perfect lips, wishing he had enough mobility to go to town. Stupid neck and spinal injuries, harshing his game...

 _”You sound like me, is all,”_ he whispered, and even just that was painful. But really - when was the last time he'd heard Steve Rogers string so many words together in a row? Cap wasn't exactly shy, but Tony tended to occupy 90% of any given conversation with his own external monologue.

Steve laughed again and Tony picked out a note of desperate relief in it. He wondered how long the man had been sitting here, thinking of things he'd like to say. “I’m glad one of us does,” the blond admits. “Clint was thrilled to death to learn you’d be speechless for a few days, but I sort of miss the way you narrate everything you do.”

 _”You mean my constant bullshit_?” Tony mouths. “ _You miss that? Masochist._ ”

The blond super soldier just grinned at him. “Someones gotta fill the silence, Stark.”

Tony settled back, staring at his friend. The worry and the fear he could read in the lines of Steve’s familiar face was comforting... different from the way Pepper used to look at him, but still comforting. She’d always been vaguely panicked about his superhero phase, and whenever he’d come back from a mission blazing with success and adrenaline and impossible pride her smiles had never quite reached her eyes. With Steve, though... he looked tired but happy, proud of Tony for coming up again, for going down in the first place in a fight that needed fighting. Even if it _was_ just a tussle with a giant creepy mutant snail-man.

Steve got it. Steve might be the only person on Earth who _got_ it. Tony supposed that was why he’d disliked the guy all along - it was scary to look at someone and know they could see right through you.

Summoning his courage, Tony let his eyes flicker down to where their hands were still clasped; when he looked up again there was a question in his eyes.

Steve Rogers smiled, lifted their hands, and brushed his lips across Tony's knuckles.

Speechless, Tony could do nothing but stare. 

He hadn’t imagined it happening like this, really. He’d expected (okay, he hadn’t really expected _anything_ from Steve, but he’d certainly fantasized about) emotional rescues, truth serum, a chink in the armor, a dramatic battlefield kiss... given his life, any protestations of loving devotion were bound to be tangled up in a heavy dose of misery. The best things in his life had always carried the highest price tags. Somehow this was happening, it was real - and careful, and quiet, and _good_ \- and he was content to let Steve’s steady touch anchor him to consciousness.

(well, the crushed windpipe was pretty horrible, but sadly not the worst thing to happen to him this year. He'd let it slide if it meant he got to get handsy with Captain America.)

Steve read his expression, glanced at their hands, and half-shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Tony quirked a brow in an look that said, very clearly, _you knew?_

“You’ve been pulling my pigtails for months, Stark. You don’t have to be a genius to figure this out.” He gave Tony's hand a squeeze, but softened the joke with a wry smile. "It felt right."

Tony snorted his amused approval and Steve’s smile went brighter than the arc reactor. Oh god - this was going to be a Thing, wasn't it? It was. He thumbed over the Captain’s broad knuckles, thoughtfully. “I’m trouble,” Tony whispered at length, because he really should come with a warning label or something, nobody ever knew what they’re getting into when it came to Tony Stark.

“Yeah, well,” Steve shrugged, settling back in his chair and making himself comfortable. He always did like a challenge. “Trouble suits me just fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end, and thanks for reading!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit is always welcome, especially when it comes to MCU canon compliance. :)


End file.
